"Sam Shalabi presents Isis And Osiris; a dystopian fantasia for ud ruminations and iterated tape manipulations. Listening to Sam's music or playing with him is always a psychedelic bliss. When Isis And Osiris penetrates my ears I am possessed by an emergent universe where immanence and alienation, abjection and love meet. Nothing will be the same. The transformative effect of Sam Shalabi's cosmology is one of the most joyful and inspiring estrangement I experienced." -- Alexander St. Onge; Montreal, Quebec, March 2016. Sam Shalabi is an Egyptian-Canadian composer, improviser and guitarist living between Montreal and Cairo. Starting out during the late '70s punk era, his work has evolved into an experimental synthesis of modern Arabic Music that incorporates free improvisation, traditional Arabic music, noise, classical, text, and jazz. He has released five solo albums, five albums with Shalabi Effect, a free improvisation quartet that bridges western psychedelic music and Arabic Maqam and three albums with Land Of Kush, an experimental 30-member orchestra for which he composes. He has appeared on over 30 albums and toured Europe, North America and North Africa. Projects include collaborations with Alvarius B, Stefan Christoff and The Dwarves Of East Agouza, a Cairo-based trio with Maurice Louca and Alan Bishop. He is a founding member of Shalabi Effect.

Majmua Music presents an album by Sam Shalabi. Music for Arabs is like Music for Airports for taxi drivers: mood music of time as a space and vice versa, to maybe while the time away in a Cairo traffic jam when all else fails. Its ambient hope is meant to conjure up something like crossing over the Oct 6th bridge into party boats moored to the banks of the Nile and pressed up against each other, blasting 20 different tunes so loud that they achieve the impossible and momentarily out-chaos the chaos of Cairo. It is koshari kisses and jasmine sweat lines and secret make-out spots in public spaces. It's Eid meat on the street and sniper precision eye-shots, Stella beer and civilized chain smoking. The words are fragments and samples of eavesdropped, overheard, misheard, under-heard desire, fear, nonsense profundity, pretension, threats and flirts and post-coital tension and release, and it's for those who don't get what they want and those who get too much of what they don't want and never asked for. It's shaabi synesthesia: in one orifice and out another, and it's all true too -- these are people and places that shine on and get lost, covered over by Cairo dust, shine again or are broken forever until the next joke or the next sudden breeze or confounded diversion makes you forget what you had to say. Features Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls/Alvarius B.) on two songs.

"Sam Shalabi's third solo outing for Alien8, Eid, was written and conceived in Cairo, Egypt in 2006 while Shalabi was living there and further realized in Montreal and Vancouver during the first half of 2007. The album is a result of two separate ideas that slowly coalesced over a couple of years. The first was Shalabi's idea of composing songs for singers he knew and enjoyed. The second idea was that of creating a 'modern Arabic pop' record. It was during the time that Shalabi was living in Cairo that he came to the realization that Arabic pop music was much more wild, wide and weird than he had imagined and this also had a huge influence on this recording. Over time Shalabi became less interested in trying to make pop songs and more interested in allowing the material to take its own shape. Upon listening to Eid, it becomes clear how Shalabi was influenced by the wide breadth of Arabic pop music: each piece is stylistically its own and allowed to take its own shape. The recording opens with a beautifully played piece of Shalabi's solo oud playing that gives one the impression they are in store for a gentle acoustic journey. Gears shift drastically with the follow-up track 'Jessica Simpson,' which can also be considered one of the recording's most interesting and unusual selections. Guest vocalist Radwon Moumneh does an excellent job delivering his vocals over repetitious percussion; then a totally unexpected Guitar Hero-style solo slips in out of nowhere. Sam Shalabi enlists the help of far too many guests to list here, although among the standout contributions is that of singer/songwriter Lhasa de Sela who has a thriving solo career and has collaborated with the likes of the Tindersticks and Nick Cave. Constellation Records recording artist Elizabeth Anka Vajajick sings on 'Billy The Kid' and Katie Moore is absolutely stunning on 'Billy The Kid Pt. II.' This will mark our ninth release with Shalabi, not including his efforts in various projects as a guest or studio musician."

"...'protest music about Arabophobia in a Post 9-11 World'. Musically, Osama takes quite a leap from the territories occupied by Shalabi's last solo outing, Hashish, comprised of field recordings, tape music and improv sewn together to fantastic results. Osama features contributions from over thirty Montreal musicians and takes a straight-ahead hard rock, psyche and pop approach, but still utilizes many improv and experimental techniques. The recording's closing and golden moment is the incredibly beautiful seventeen minute epic, 'Guantanamo Bay', which begins with an eerie similarity to Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips. Once again the blissful pop elements fade and dissolve into layers of sound. This track builds into an incredible crescendo driven by static, brushes, crackles, noise and the distant sound of muffled epic soundtrack music."